1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the skin color conversion, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for performing a conversion of a skin color of an input image into a preference color by applying face detection and skin color detection.
2. Description of Related Art
With the development of digital appliances, the type of imaging works has been rapidly changed from analog to digital. Currently, research is under way in the field in which appliances that digitally capture and store images can process stored digital images so that they satisfy the human visual recognition.
In devices such as digital cameras or digital camcorders that capture and store images, skin color is one of the first elements the eyes focus on. Accordingly, proper conversion of the skin color is important in improving the performance of such digital image devices. In addition, converting the skin color is also important in other software and hardware that converts digital images.
In order to convert the skin color of a captured image into a natural skin color, it is necessary to apply a skin color to a portion of an image corresponding to a human skin, while no skin color conversion is performed with respect to a portion corresponding to a background or another object that has a color similar to the human skin color but does not correspond to the human skin.
Conventionally, a method for detecting a skin area in an image using a predefined skin color and converting the color of the skin area has been proposed. A skin color in an image can be converted into a preference skin color through a lookup table or a color conversion equation between a reference color and a target color. Also, a method for performing a color conversion with respect to an area corresponding to a human face has been proposed. According to this method, the contour of a face is extracted, and a color conversion is performed with respect to the corresponding area.
However, according to the conventional skin color conversion method that detects the color of the skin and converts the corresponding color into a preference color, a color that does not correspond to the skin may be converted into the preference color. Also, according to the conventional skin color conversion method that extracts the contour of the face and converts the corresponding color into the preference color, a color discontinuity may occur on the boundary of the face area. Accordingly, a method whereby the color of an actual skin area can be converted into the preference color is required.